Saidit.net — Dec 19, 2018 — New Saidit Android App Released

submitted by magnora7[A] from (self.SaidIt)

Today we're happy to announce the release of our new Android app for browsing saidit. It is a port of an existing reddit app, called RedReader, that is very polished and is open source. /u/d3rr put in a lot of work to port this code over to saidit, so now we finally have a fully functional app!

You can download the Android app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.saiditnet.redreader

Here are some features of our Saidit app:

  • Free and Open Source - no ads/tracking.
  • Swipe posts and comments left and right to perform customizable actions
  • Advanced cache management - automatically stores past versions of posts and comments.
  • Support for multiple accounts.
  • Two-column tablet mode
  • Image precaching (optional).
  • Built in image viewer, and GIF player.
  • Support for imgur albums and gifv files
  • Compression
  • Night mode (i.e. a dark theme)
  • Translations for some languages

Lastly, the open-source code for this app is available here:

https://github.com/libertysoft3/RedReader

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[–][deleted] 14 insightful - 3 fun14 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 3 fun -  (12 children)

If you guys find any bugs please post them up. We will also post this in the F-Droid app store eventually.

[–]CapnCrinklepants 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

So far so good! I haven't explored too much though, so there might be some lurking bugs around

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Thank you for your feedback kind sir

[–]RavAshi 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Suggestion: how about change behavior of the app - so that clicking a comment would not hide it, but it would show the choice, to reply or to give a rating or to report, etc.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I guess today is your lucky day. Check out Settings -> Behavior -> Comment Tap Action

[–]OldManCorley 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Leave bugs here or on github?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Your preference, but GitHub if it's all the same to you. Thanks for the help.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The F-Droid release has been initiated https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/merge_requests/4149

[–]Buddy_Ironwood 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

any time frame for an IOS app?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

1 month out or so

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Now available on F-Droid https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.saiditnet.redreader/

[–]Rixon 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

New user here, came in from F-Droid! I like the idea and I see you're considering decentralisation - hoping for ActivityPub!

So far I've only noticed four things about the app that bug me: - I used the option in preferences (on the site through the internal webview) to unsub all, but the app still tells me I have 10 front page subs when the site says I have 0. - I thought the thread view still had up and down vote buttons instead of lightbulb and laugh - turns out they're useless pgUp and pgDown buttons - does anyone use these when you can just momentum scroll? I feel like they're just in the way. The preferences page also still refers to the votes as 'upvote insightful and downvote funny' which is confusing. - The RegEx for your automatic linking of subs/users/comments doesn't link anything after subname: s/sub/comments/hmmm (I did see another effect in someone else's post where a word ending in s joined to another word with a slash produced a sub link but it appears that got fixed at some point?) - The markdown engine doesn't seem to have ~strikethrough~ or multi line code : appears to become inline [][code][] (edit: just learned that the 'reddit way' has always been to prefix each line with 4 spaces... Wow. That must be frustrating when pasting more than 3 lines.) I'm used to using markdown in Riot (a Matrix client) and GitHub for code blocks with the format langNameForSyntaxHighlight code();

...5. Do link previews have to break up blocks like lists?

[–]Rixon 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay yep #5 is definitely the most annoying: this looks fine on web but messy as hell in the app.

[–]JasonCarswell 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Bravo and congrats. I don't have a cel phone but I salute your efforts.

Add these releases to the footer "apps & tools" section. (I've installed still haven't read the instructions or used the RES thing yet.)

[–]magnora7[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks. Ah good call, we should add both m.saidit.net and this new app to the apps & tools footer. I'll do that now.

edit: There we go, added it.

[–]happysmash27 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

Holy cow, I was just thinking about how it would be easier to be more frequent here with an app… and now there is a port of my favourite client :D !

Edit: Where can I edit translations? In the Esperanto version, it still says what translates to "Vote For" and "Vote Against".

Edit 2: Should I translate at https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/redreader/strings/, or is that for the old project, and I should edit the files directly?

Edit: It seems I should edit the files directly. How should I translate "sub" though? In the Reddit version, the translation is "redditero" a combination of "reddit" and the suffix "ero" meaning a small part of something. Could saiditero work? Forumero (forumo is a word meaning "forum").

[–]happysmash27 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

/u/d3rr and /u/magnora7, I have a question about translation.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The open source code link is here, as in the original post: https://github.com/libertysoft3/RedReader

And as far as Esperanto translations, you're on your own there. I know nothing about Esperanto. But if you make changes to the code that are beneficial we'd be happy to integrate them in to the main code.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You can edit this one directly and make a pull request or send it to us or whatever:

https://github.com/libertysoft3/RedReader/blob/saidit-v1.9.8.5/src/main/res/values-eo/strings.xml

Also there are some SaidIt added new strings here which are not translated yet that you can add to the above: https://github.com/libertysoft3/RedReader/blob/saidit-v1.9.8.5/src/main/res/values/strings.xml

Saiditero sounds fine to me.

[–]cat-gun 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Great news!

[–]Mnemonic 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Noticed it’s pretty prominent in the F-Droid 'newest' tab!

Also when choosing the 'use tor' setting (under Network in Settings) It stop working and throws up ‘illegal action by user’ kind of error. (I'm on the dutch version, if needed I'll check it out in english sometime). It's a red block message instead of loading any page.

Now the app does load up Orbot when openend with this setting and it loads untill a connection with the tornetwork is made before the error even loads.

There are some 'reddit' legacy mentions, one in my error, but iirc some more. (Sorry don't really take extensive notes in public transport :p)

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

/u/d3rr we might want to get rid of this "use tor" option in the app I suppose, as per his comment

[–]OldManCorley 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

This is fantastic, and a big thx bby to /u/d3rr for his work. This is the most important thing that happened to the site since... Well, it opened.

The app works great so far, looks good and scrolls fast - all in all a good app and a seemingly flawless port.

Good job, if I had a Google account I'd rate it 5/5 WITHOUT rice.

Bonus prizes to whoever decided to go for an F-Droid release.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks man. Yeah RedReader seems to be well written so the porting wasn't all that bad. Supporting our two dimensional voting model was the most involved bit and the most time consuming.

[–]OldManCorley 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I bet, but that's the price of having something unique. It works flawlessly.

👌🏆🏆👍

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is the most important thing that happened to the site since... Well, it opened.

We agree. This has been a long time coming and we're glad it's finally here!

[–]talha 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

wow

[–]Airbus320 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Wow

[–]talha 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

yep

[–]Airbus320 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I love ads

[–]Mnemonic 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Great, great, great! Even greater than the mobile site!

I don't use it logged in, too slow when guided through Orbot... But for checking the front/new pages it has replaced my 'newfeeds' I usually check on mobile, off road while bored.

Official review:

tap, tap I'm in! ~Mnemonic

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Awesome! Glad you enjoy it. It really is a nice piece of software, d3rr did a top-notch job on it.

[–]AbeFroman 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Any news on an iPhone app?

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

In the works, maybe a month or two. We're trying out a big backend upgrade first that needs to be done.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Congrats guys!

[–]Airbus320 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

No u

[–]RavAshi 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Excellent app but if it has in-app login menu, it would be perfect.

Congrats before!

[–]OldManCorley 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

How do you mean, I logged in through the app?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think he's talking about how you login at a browser page rather than say an Android native form field. /u/RavAshi this is a Reddit oauth convention which let's you login without giving the app your password. That makes less sense in our setup, but it's still a good little security separation. Maybe there's a better way to do it, pull requests accepted :)

[–]RavAshi 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I need to figure it out for 5 minutes how to reply a comment. -sigh-

"reddit is fun" is better than RedReader in usability but sadly it isn't open source.

[–]danuker 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You get used to it in a few days. I use RedReader for Reddit also, and I really appreciate the software freedom.

[–][deleted]  (2 children)

[deleted]

    [–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Thanks for the bug report! /u/d3rr will take a look at these.

    [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I knew that "go to comment" was broken. I'll add these to the list and see what I can do.

    [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Now available on F-Droid https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.saiditnet.redreader/

    [–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Sweet!

    [–]danuker 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Hats off!

    [–]gameMaker 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    Is there an fdroid release?

    [–]magnora7[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Yes: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.saiditnet.redreader/

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

    Should I post feature requests for the mobile app as a comment in this thread, make a new post, or make a post over in s/IdeasForSaidIt?

    [–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

    Either is fine, whichever gets the most visibility would probably be good as we could really use someone to help us with this, we're spread quite thin

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    People seem to use s/SaidIt the most for posting about updates/help/requests, and that's because it's linked in your Welcome post and your Wiki/FAQs page. Users don't know where to go for issues, so we go to this sub and don't consider what works best for all of you.

    What works best for all of you and your prioritization and organization and structuring? I know this whole site is a volunteer gig, and you're welcoming help from others. I want to make things as easy as possible for everyone so you're not sifting through nonsense just to find actual site/coding issues that need to be addressed.

    To me, it makes the most sense for s/SaidIt to be announcements and official updates by all of you Admins, rather than all of us users throwing spaghetti at the wall for whatever random thing we come across that we have a question about.

    I mean, if that works for all of you, that's what we'll do, but I think in the long run it would be better if you had separate subs for:

    • policy questions
    • mobile help/issues
    • desktop help/issues
    • mod support

    That way, even users who aren't Admins can pitch in on specific functionality they're knowledgeable about, and user questions won't get lost in the shuffle. Also, you Admins who aren't able to answer can pull in others who have already established that they can.

    At the end of the day though ... YOU TELL ME. I asked a question, where is the appropriate place to share my concerns about the mobile app. Where can I talk to the mobile app devs to give feedback.

    [–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I think you're overthinking this a bit. Just post in /s/ideasforsaidit if that's what you want

    [–]CarlDung 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    It is quite common I can't load images with the mobile app. Any idea why that happens?

    [–]Airbus320 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    No

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Update: the newest SaidIt app (version 1.9.9.2, just released) has improved compatibility with Android 4.3 and 4.4 devices like the Samsung Galaxy S3.

    It appears that the SaidIt app (and RedReader since 2018) has never worked on these older Android version despite claiming compatibility. The issue arose when one of RedReader's libraries discontinued full support of TLS 1.0.

    [–]Kenny 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

    The app is ok but i'll probably stick to the mobile website for now because it looks and feels better.

    I don't understand why the voting and reply buttons are so hidden. The design and placement of functions isn't clear enough in my opinion and i find myself often searching for the most simple features.

    I'd love the app if the overall design would be a little bit more like the mobile website and if things would be easier to find and more clear.

    [–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

    Ha you're the first person I've heard say they prefer the mobile website over everything else. I designed the mobile site myself. The app design was basically inherited though from an existing app called redreader.

    Someday there might be an different app that basically uses the mobile site, is that something you'd be interested in? Glad people are using the mobile site!

    [–]Kenny 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    I'd definitely use an app like that. I'd personally prefer an app similar to Reddit is fun but i don't think that app is open source so that would be harder to accomplish.

    [–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Cool, noted. Maybe someday soon-ish we could make an app like that.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Voting is hidden in the swipe action... So it is everywhere but invisible.

    We might port this one someday: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.ccrama.redditslide&hl=en_US

    [–]Kenny 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Oh thanks.

    Yea would be nice, seems like a good client

    [–]Equilibrio 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Some image sites don't seem to display in the app. I have noticed that some posts using images from catbox.moe and a few others only return an error in the app, but can still be viewed by opening them in an external browser. Other than that the app is pretty solid.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

    I'm currently trying to port Slide for Saidit (and JRAW, since Slide uses it), since redreader is ass imo, and Slide is my preferred app for Reddit. (No promises though, I drop projects I started pretty frequently.)

    [–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    Good luck! Let us know if you make any progress as we're always looking to add more software to the saidit suite of programs

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Thanks! You can look at progress here: JRAW-saidit Slide-saidit

    So far I've just ported JRAW to use saidit's API, but it's not tested yet at all

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    By the way, is there any documentation of API differences between this and reddit (for example, the vote system), or a sub where I can ask API questions? https://saidit.net/dev/api doesn't have updated documentation. Looking for stuff in the code is tedious, especially when it's not in an IDE.

    EDIT: oh wait, it kinda seems to? Still calls them upvotes/downvotes though. Maybe it isn't that outdated after all.

    [–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    As far as I know there are no differences whatsoever. We haven't changed the API system a single bit. Like you noted, many of the old variable names are unchanged and such. We simply have verified it works and done nothing else, so there really is no more documentation beyond the reddit documentation.

    [–]GothFvck 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    What about for other servers running Saidit? We need to be able to log in to this app using our own instances!

    Federation? ActivityPub is all the rage these days but, OStatus might work just as well. (See https://GNUsocial.network)